Caroline Kennedy Says Tokyo, Seoul Should Work Out Differences

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy met Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima during a February visit.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy said Thursday that it was up to Japan and South Korea to improve their relations and that she was confident the two sides could make enough progress to satisfy U.S. President Barack Obama.

Speaking to public broadcaster NHK in her first Japanese television interview since becoming ambassador in November, Ms. Kennedy reiterated the negative U.S. view of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit last year to a shrine dedicated to Japan’s war dead, saying any actions that “make the regional climate more difficult” were disappointing.

But she generally held back from adding to the criticism, heaping praise on Mr. Abe as a ”stable, strong leader” and a “wonderful partner” for the U.S. She said Mr. Abe had brought hope to his own people with the revival of Japan’s economy.

Referring to efforts to improve relations between Japan and South Korea, she said: “I think the two countries really should and will take the lead in this process and the United States, being a close ally of both of them, is happy to help in any way we can.”

“I’m sure that President Obama will be very, very happy with the progress that they will make,” she added.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has refused to meet Mr. Abe since taking office, saying Tokyo must address its wartime past and the issue of comfort women–girls and women, many of them Korean, who were forced to sexually serve Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Mr. Abe stirred ill will in Seoul and Beijing last year when he publicly questioned the definition of “invasion.” Mr. Abe’s visit in December to the Yasukuni Shrine, where some convicted war criminals from World War II are enshrined, prompted fierce protests from Seoul and Beijing and frustration in Washington. His administration further infuriated Seoul last week when it said it would re-examine the process leading up to a landmark Japanese apology on the comfort women issue.

The ambassador played down the impact on the U.S.-Japan relationship of recent comments by Japanese officials on history, some of them made by the head of NHK himself. “History is complicated,” she said. The alliance “is the foundation of so many of the positive developments in the region over the last 50 years and so I think it’s against that backdrop that these issues have to be looked at,” she said, adding that the two countries could be close partners despite occasional differences.

NHK Chairman Katsuto Momii commented on the comfort women issue early this year, saying women forced to work as sex slaves had existed in war zones all over the world. Ms. Kennedy did not comment specifically on Mr. Momii’s remarks.

Mr. Abe’s administration has restarted efforts to relocate a U.S. base on the southern island of Okinawa and moved toward a wider reinterpretation of how it can use its self-defense forces, both moves generally in line with Washington’s wishes.

In February, Ms. Kennedy visited Okinawa, which is home to roughly 70% of U.S. military personnel assigned to Japan. Many islanders feel they bear a disproportionate share of the burden of Japan’s alliance with the U.S.

The ambassador said it was important to get to know Okinawa’s geography and atmosphere.

“The United States and the government is committed to reducing the impact of these bases as quickly as possible and I understand why that is so important,” she said.

While lauding Mr. Abe’s efforts to revitalize the economy, the ambassador also praised his efforts to bring more women into the workforce.

“I would like to really commend the prime minister for putting that issue front and center,” she said. “It opens up a conversation, a national dialogue on this issue, and of course it’s not just a women’s issue, it’s for men too, for families, companies, and the government certainly has a role to play.”

Comments (5 of 31)

Last year, one Korean student found an old textbook which his grand father used at his home, and he was so surprised because that textbook was written in Japanese and Korean languages. He learned "Japanese banned Korean language in schools in annexation era," but this textbook proved that is a lie. So, he is puzzled and put the photo of this textbook in his blog and asked his friends what this textbook means. They are still wondering what their government tells true history or they are deceived for a long time.

This is a big problem that threats the identity of Korean and so some of young ones are now very spectical in Anti-Japan education by government. These kind of doubts are now getting popular through internet when 13 year old boy was arrested because he wrote something good about Japan and Japanese. Is it natural among international countries that a government controls what its citizens write and think by strict regulations and laws? One lie is going to destroy all what the government burks.

10:27 pm March 10, 2014

How Stupid Can the Japanese Be? Is there some limit to this Divine People? wrote:

@10:40 am March 10, 2014: The JP Ministry of Foreign Affairs genius who wrote this entry seems to believe that because the written languages of China, Korea and Japan used Chinese characters that what? that Koreans were either Chinese in disguise or that they only discovered their Koreanness because, according to him, the Japanese made them or allowed them or freed them to be Korean. This is so sick, twisted and incorrect historically, culturally and linguistically that it better points out how historically illiterate the Japanese people are. I know that you friends of Japan will say, "This is just one guy." Nope. Ask the average Japanese to give a thumbnail history of Korea or to tell you anything about Korea and they will say things like, "Oh, you mean those Chinese countries?" or "They only seem like Japanese because they learned to be that way from the time that Japan colonized them." The "average Japanese" has no conception of ANY history in ANY country. This is especially true of their knowledge of Japanese ancient history, especially the arrival of Iron Age Tungusics that JP historians call Yayoi - a people absolutely never mentioned as Yayoi in Korean or Chinese annals. Why? Because there was no Yayoiland. "Yayoi" is a made-up name. The earlier and only possible Iron Age sword wielding, horse riding, kofun building Tungusics in the neighborhood of Japan in 300BC-600AD were Koreans from the Gaya and Baekje kingdoms. The tomb of Nintoku burst open during one earthquake and during the excavation it was said that "items were of continental origin." "Continental" is another JP anti-history euphemism for "Korean," along with "peninsular," "northern" and often even "Chinese." During the 20thC and up to today, JP kids are taught that JP heroically struggled to free Asia of western colonialism, not to take over Asia and the world. Korea was in the process at the end of the 19th C of freeing itself of Chinese suzerainty, but Joseon was too slow to modernize. In the end its king did rapidly bring in foreign advanced technologies and Seoul even had streetcars when oxcarts dominated only a few years earlier. In the case of Korea, the collapse of Qing China as well as Russian czars could have meant that Korea could have grown as Japan had 50 years earlier, into a strong and independent modern country. But JP took the initiative and killed Korean independence. Like the sneaks that the JP always are in matters of war, they preyed on a weak neighbor, their kinfolk, with a goal of stealing Korean mines, rerouting the rice crop, and enslaving the population. As soon as they could, the JP occupation authorities banned Korean language in schools and forced people to take Japanese family names, effectively attempting to destroy even the native culture of Korea.

10:40 am March 10, 2014

Anonymous wrote:

South Koreans really need to learn Korean history, particularly about how they became independent in 1895 after the Treaty of Shimonoseki or how they were fighting against the Chinese in WWII.

Official documents of Korea Kingdoms have always used Chinese characters. It was only until the Japanese rule that forced mandatory education of Korean letters to the Korean public, duricing which illiteracy has been defeated, and rice production, population, and life expantcy all doubled.

The oldest remaining officials records of Korea (Samguk Sagi), completed in 1145, are written using Chinese characters. Civil service exams were naturally conducted using Chinese characters, using Chinese historical texts. It will be really be helpful for Koreans to be able to read their own history.

4:26 am March 10, 2014

Anonymous wrote:

Remember , that it is a defeated nation of World War II originally also Korea .

- Residents of the region of the colony , I hope you become a Member of Parliament ?
Residents of the area corresponding to the current South Korea , I was able to become a Member of Parliament of Japan at that time .

· Will it be able inhabitants of the region of colonial , become military generals ?
Residents of the area corresponding to the current South Korea , I had become a general of the Japanese military at the time .

For this reason , to World War II , Korea and Japan is should bear the same responsibility .

The comfort women issue that South Korea say, what you know to be a problem that human communities that have become South Korea the current had Japanese nationality at the time was caused?

In the region of the current South Korea, the real problem is a thing by the abduction and trafficking by people buying Korean.
This problem has been from before and after the war up to (the late 1950s), since the Japanese police were cracking down before the war, you are greatly increased after the war becomes.

At the time, nationality of slave traffic even if live in an area of ​​South Korea the current, it was Japanese citizenship.
I'm criticized by utilizing the difference in the nationality of the old days and now, to have that Japan is terrible.

Japan fought with the United States in World War II, not only divided into two Japan and South Korea in the war.

1:17 am March 10, 2014

Anonymous wrote:

Han(恨) of Koreans doesn't mean a hatred.
It closes to the grief or sorrow.

Sex-slave women in battle by Japan's military government and live-body experiment of 731 Division in Manchuria
during WWll should be formally stated by Japan.

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